A local authority must establish a scheme for reducing the amounts which persons are liable to pay in respect of council tax where improvements are made to the energy efficiency of chargeable dwellings.
A scheme established under subsection (1) is an "energy efficiency discount scheme".
An energy efficiency discount scheme may make such provision as the local authority considers appropriate, including, in particular, provision about—
But, under an energy efficiency discount scheme, the amount which a person is liable to pay in respect of council tax may be reduced only where each of the conditions mentioned in subsection (5) is met (whatever other conditions may require to be met under the scheme).
Those conditions are—
In ascertaining whether the condition in subsection (5)(e) is met, no account is to be taken of any person who is jointly and severally liable, with the person mentioned in subsection (5)(a), to pay council tax in respect of the dwelling.
The minimum reduction which may be provided for under an energy efficiency discount scheme must be—
The local authority may, under an energy efficiency discount scheme, reduce the amount which a person is liable to pay in respect of a dwelling to nil.
In this section—
"energy efficiency" includes the use of—
(a)technologies reliant on sources of energy other than fossil fuel and nuclear fuel;
(b)materials the manufacture or use of which produces or involves lower emissions of greenhouse gases than other materials; and
(c)surplus heat from electricity generation or other industrial sources for district heating or other purposes;
"fossil fuel" means—
(a)coal;
(b)lignite;
(c)peat;
(d)natural gas (within the meaning of the Energy Act 1976 (c. 76));
(e)crude liquid petroleum;
(f)petroleum products (within the meaning of that Act);
(g)any substance produced directly or indirectly from a substance mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (f);
"greenhouse gas" has the meaning given by section 10(1) of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (asp 12).